VI. CUPS

IN SHORT:

UPRIGHT: Self-Witnessing. Nostalgia. A trip down Memory Lane. Integration & Growth. 

REVERSED: Melancholia. Depression. Delusions. Attachment to emotional wounds.BE AWARE OF NARCISM. 

KEEP SCROLLING DOWN FOR IN DEPTH EXPLANATION

“This melancholia, does not mean a retreat into a closed universe of suffering and remembering; it is rather a constellation of emotions and feelings that envelop a historical transition, the only way in which the search for new ideas and projects can coexist with the sorrow and mourning for a lost realm of revolutionary experiences. (xiv)”

–Enzo Traverso, Left-Wing Melancholia.

IN DEPTH:
We see five children and one doll. All of them calling towards a child just out of sight. They look back, to call this child into their group and into their imaginative games. They are surrounded by buckets of freshly picked wild flowers, possibly props for play within their shared world. The scene is fragrant with narcissus flowers.

The act of remembering one’s self in the past, is a type of re-writing our own personal narrative. It allows us to see and love (and potentially forgive) your past selves. It is in this self-reflection that we find crucial lessons to inform our action and understanding of oneself in relief. Self-witnessing is an important practice that can rejuvenate and help one recover or transition between the chapters. 

However when seen from the reverse we notice a mid-century modern home in the back-ground and realize that this is a nostalgia for a past that was never actually ours. Six of cups from this vantage point asks us to interrogate the assumptions we have about our past, to question the narratives that are in front of us. In the reverse we find ourselves reconsidering whether these children are inviting the unseen inner child (the most guileless part of ourselves) or whether

these children are exiling the unseen child because perhaps this other child disrupts their group narrative, or personal narrative. Six of cups reverse asks you to remember the concept of micro aggressions and remember that we are all equally capable of finding these small ways to bully others or ourselves with the destructive personal narratives about ourselves and the world around us. BEWARE OF NARCISM, AND NARCISSISTS